"For a diabetic response dog, what you look for is a dog that's a very busy dog and a dog that likes to use its nose," she said.

"So there are little bit a kin to training a dog for drug detection, and explosives and various other things like...search and rescue dogs, so the training follows some of the principles.

"You need a dog that's willing and happy to use its nose all day everyday, but in doing so, to focus just on that one very important key sense."

Ms Donne says the dog can then take steps to alert the person or seek assistance.

"They will have a rubber rod or a toy that hangs from their collar and they're taught to grasp it as they sense a change in blood chemistry," she said.

"That it will give a clear signal to the person who's beginning to go into a hypoglycaemic event.

"If it's progressed beyond that point, and the person is incoherent...then what the dog is also trained to do is to push an alarm button or to go and find someone."

Ms Donne says 'Uni' is in the final six-months of training - a process which costs around $NZ50,000.

But she says the dogs would help save the New Zealand health system the high-cost of hospital admissions from diabetics unaware they're slipping into a hypoglycaemic event until it's too late.

"Diabetic response dogs are going to avert and continue to avert those very expensive episodes and save the health system a small fortune, to say nothing of averting all the terrible, debilitating sequelae that happen when somebody has a hypoglycaemic event," she said.